Time Capsule

My Favorite 10 Songs by the Rock Group Hall & Oates

Writer: Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie

Published: February 10, 2003

Hindsight: Transatlanticism wasn't even out when Gibbard offered up this love letter to Hall & Oates. His fandom might have seemed odd in 2003, but of course it doesn't now; everyone knows that Hall & Oates rule (we interviewed Daryl Hall a few years later).

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Probably the most inane question asked during interviews with bands or musicians is the "what are your influences" question. For me, it ranks right up there with "where did you get your name" (which we get a lot, being a band with a silly name). Still, I see it asked to virtually every band in almost every fanzine or website in this great land. Usually, bands rattle off a safe, standard list of punk and indie rock favorites and expound on where they were when they first saw Band X play or how Band Z's first seven-inch made them realize that music was their life's calling. Hey, I've done it! We all have, especially when we were younger, more insecure, and felt it was necessary to broadcast a beacon of touchstones to let everyone know that we were "down."

I've been thinking about my REAL influences lately, and I've realized that the question should really go a little further back, a little deeper. Probably back to a time before I knew who Fugazi and Pavement were. For me, that time was the 80s, and it was in the music of Hall & Oates.

Even though my dad had an extensive collection of rock music, I wasn't allowed to buy LPs for fear that the lyrical content might corrupt my young mind. It didn't really matter, though, as I received $3/week for allowance when I was eight years old and even by 80s price standards, records were out of my price range. Fortunately, I realized that the local library had records one could check out for free. Without telling my parents, I went down there and picked up Big Bam Boom by Hall & Oates. I took it home, put it on the turntable, and began my life-long affair with this charismatic, hit-making duo. In my humble opinion, these are their best songs, in no particular order:

Why we'd be asked to dance on our knees by Hall & Oates, I don't really know. It sounds kinda dirty, but also completely nonsensical. Regardless, the combination and crossfading between these two songs makes for the best opening to any H+O record. The chord progression for "Out of Touch" is a thing to be marveled at, and the outro holds some of Daryl Hall's best vocal adlibbing.

I like this song in that so-bad-it's-good way. It chronicles a chance meeting between a prostitute and a married man who, when propositioned for sex, demands that she, "Leave me alone, I'm a family man!" The woman then offers to "drops her price and pride" as to entice our protagonist, but his response remains the same. Luckily for him, by the time he gets his confidence up, she's gone and a bullet has been dodged. Also, the album that this song appears on (H2O) has one of the best back cover photos ever, where the overly perspired duo stare each down like prize fighters. It's absolutely terrifying.

I've tried to convince the DCFC boys to cover this track since the band began. Walla has always been a proponent, but we've never been able to get it past Nick. The melody in the verse is so fucking good I can't stand it: "And oh, oh, I can feel the magic of your touch, um hmm," etc.

I wish I could have been present for the writing of this number so as to discern whose idea it was to spell out "method of modern love" for the chorus. It's so ridiculous, but it somehow works. For that reason alone, it makes this list. Outside of that, though, this song kinda sucks.

80s production at its most grandiose and extravagant, but the song is so fucking catchy, it doesn't even begin to matter. I particularly like the pre-chorus melody: "I know your first reaction, you sli-i-i-ide away." Once again, stellar vocal adlibbing by Mr. Hall, who I firmly believe ranks up there amongst the best vocal adlibbers ever.

An addition to the Rock 'N Soul, Pt. 1 greatest hits collection, which I like for the same reasons as "Family Man". The play on words and subsequent sexual innuendo is truly a career low, but hey, nobody can hit a home run every time.

I had a conversation with Travis from the D. Plan on the Death and Dismemberment Tour last spring about when poetic license goes too far in pop song lyrics. One of the two songs that sparked the discussion was that one 80s song about not having to take your clothes off to have a good time and how they could go dancing and drink some "cherry wine" instead. The other was "She's Gone", in which the "carbon AND monoxide choke my thoughts away." We decided that the latter was unacceptable, but could not pass judgment on the former, as we were unable to find anyone that could either confirm or deny the existence of "cherry wine." Anyone?

This is a rare appearance of John Oates on lead vocals. A quick perusing of the liner notes indicates that Oates penned this tune without the assistance of Daryl Hall or any of the other songwriters the duo had been known to collaborate with. And you can tell. The ethnically tinged lyrics (ex., "I see Sophia on the silver screen-a" ) hit a level of offensiveness rivaled only by Genesis' "Illegal Alien". Why do I like this? Please see #2 and #7. "Where are the Italian Girls," you ask? I have no idea. John, please let Daryl Hall write the lyrics from now on.

I just reread my last few entries, and realize that this article has steered dramatically from the positive sales pitch I was trying to get going at the beginning, so I'm ending with one that I really, really like. "You Make My Dreams" has the shuffling dance beat and pro-love lyrics of a true 1980s white-person-dance-party movie classic. Everybody cut footloose.